Hey gang! I'm having a brain fart here... I thought the IIII edges were more predominant on the early halves. I thought the later ones just had the edge lettering. I don't have another 1836 in stock to compare it to... I cant remember if they changed them here or not and my Overton guide was little help... for some reason this coin stuck out at me. Is this something funky?
I believe 1836 and prior all had lettered edges; around 1,200 '36 half's were minted with a reeded edge and different reverse, as were the '37 thru '39's. This series confuses me, so I basically stay away from them, lol.
Overton's book states the edge should read as follows: |||FIFTY|||CENTS|||OR|||HALF|||A|||DOLLAR||| Even though 1809 XXX and III edge varieties are included in Overton's book as varieties all their own with none similar, I believe that Overton only states them as so because there are multiple combination of edge designs within that year, and he wants to make it clear, even though from 1834-1836, the edges are technically "III" as well. But that's just my theory. I wish there was a better way for me to word that because it's kind of hard to understand the way I've explained... -Brian EDIT: Went ahead and attributed the coin for you, Matt, just in case you hadn't already - Looks like it's an O.120 which is an R3 on a scale of 1 to 8. If someone comes along and questions the accuracy of my attribution, by all means correct me - I may be wrong. There's twenty-three different varieties for this date, and twenty of them are nearly identical!
I don't know what your talking about exactly but, FWIW, the one that I have, the '34, has nothing but letters and stars
ccording to Overton third edition Page 672 the |||FIFTY|||CENTS|||OR|||HALF|||A|||DOLLAR||| edge began in 1830 and runs through the end of the series. 1830 and 31 can also be found with the reeds between the letters either upright or slanted to either the left or the right. So there are three edges in 1830 and 31 and the upright version won out as the standard edge.
Probably not. Possibly you missed them because they are not strongly impressed, or the are worn away, or you may have a counterfeit.
